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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397174">Don't Fuss</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanceLikeAnArchitect/pseuds/DanceLikeAnArchitect'>DanceLikeAnArchitect</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Inspector Morse &amp; Related Fandoms, Inspector Morse (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s08e05 The Remorseful Day, Gen, Grief/Mourning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:42:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,251</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanceLikeAnArchitect/pseuds/DanceLikeAnArchitect</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Three words tied together their partnership, and showed Lewis that Morse cared. They're just not the three words that most people would expect.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Robert Lewis &amp; Inspector Morse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Don't Fuss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>The words replayed over and over in Lewis’s head, with subtle differences in tone bridging years of friendship.</p><p>Morse, sitting up groggily after fainting on the rooftop of a church. Lewis had reached out a hand to help him up, concern showing plainly in his face.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Morse, sitting slumped on a hotel bed in Italy as Lewis gently cleaned a nasty cut to his head. Lewis had been worried that his guv would need stitches, had scolded him for going out alone, without Lewis to help him.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>The first time Lewis had seen Morse throw up at a particularly grizzly crime scene. He’d followed Morse behind the hedges, placed his hand gently on Morse’s back. When Morse looked up Lewis had given him a concerned and questioning glance, trying to ask if he was alright without words.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>And then one time Morse had been seriously injured during a case together. Lewis swore his heart had stopped when he watched the suspect slash at Morse with a knife, cutting a wide, bloody streak across the pristine white of his guv’s shirt. Morse had fallen, the suspect had fled, and Lewis had half carried Morse back to the jag, murmuring encouragement the whole way. After radioing for an ambulance, Lewis had sat with Morse, arm wrapped around his shoulder as Morse leaned heavily against him, starting to become terrified by Morse’s pallor and silence. “Sir?” he had inquired anxiously. Morse had turned his head slowly to look at Lewis, blue eyes penetrating his soul.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Then, more times than Lewis could count during the fearful, painful last 18 months. The second time Morse had been hospitalized for an ulcer, Lewis had finally been free to visit rather than just sit and worry from far away. He came with a book and a classical music tape. Morse had smiled weakly at him, but when Lewis tried to ask him if he was alright, he’d responded with those same three words.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>So Lewis had changed the subject to his recently completed inspector's course, talking of semi-interesting nothings until his guv had drifted off to sleep. Only then was Lewis free to stroke the hair back from Morse’s forehead, hold his hand, anxiously read his chart and question his nurses about how he was doing. “He’s a very ill man,” the nurse had said blandly, her perfectly calm face not quite masking the sympathy Lewis saw in her eyes. And Lewis had nodded, trying to conceal his own fear behind and equally calm face. He knew he had not succeeded.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Late nights at Morse’s house, when Lewis begged his friend to rest, <em> “please, sir, just rest, it will keep til morning,” </em>and Morse would grumble and say those three words, but then he’d also let Lewis make him a last cup of tea and put him to bed, and sometimes even smile gratefully at Lewis before Lewis turned out the lights.</p><p>Then there were the few nights when Morse was so sick and scared, and he <em>didn’t</em> say those three words, and Lewis would sit with him on the sofa, or on the edge of his bed, hold his hand, stroke his hair, just as he had done in the hospital too many times, and he wouldn’t stop until Morse finally said those three words.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Then Lewis would get up and leave, and lie awake in his own bed, and let the worry eat away at his insides because he could not fuss.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Morse, leaning against a tree during that last fateful case, looking so miserably ill and old and not the strong, blazing man that Lewis had come to admire for all these years. A wisp. A shadow. And Lewis couldn’t help half scolding and half begging his guv, his friend, to please go home and rest, you shouldn’t be here, <em>please just let me care, let me help you, please…</em></p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>The last time Morse said those three words to him, in the hospital, Lewis thought his heart was breaking. Lewis could tell that they were both terrified and sad and hurting so much, and <em>God, please let him get better, please, God</em>. Time was so short, he only had a few minutes, how could he tell Morse everything he needed to say in so short a time? <em>Please, sir, you can’t leave me, I won’t know what to do without you, you’re the best detective I’ve ever known, I need you, please just stay… </em></p><p>But, of course, Lewis could not say any of these things, so he settled for rearranging Morse’s pillow. Morse looked so horribly weak, and Lewis was so scared, and he hoped, just for once, that he would be able to show he cared—</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Those three words. So Lewis had swallowed a sob, talked about the case, and Morse had given Lewis his last revelation. Even while dying, Morse was the cleverest man that Lewis had ever known.</p><p>About to leave, he cast a last, desperate look back at the sleeping figure with Strange sitting next to him. “I’ll stay with him,” assured the Chief. Strange’s own version of those three words. Still, Lewis wished he could hear Morse say them, just one more time before he left. He needed that gruff yet gentle reassurance and reproach now more than ever.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Because those three words had come to mean so much more between the two of them over more than a decade of partnership. They were reassurance that Morse would be alright. Their gruffness hid Morse’s gratitude that Lewis cared enough to fuss. Whenever Lewis could elicit them from his guv, it was proof that they both cared. Even if neither knew how to vocalize their affection in any other way.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>The words echoed in Lewis’s head as he left the hospital for the airport. Not knowing, exactly, but fearing.</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>He hoped to God that Morse’s reassurance could be right, just one more time.</p>
<hr/><p>Then, a phone call. And Lewis knew he’d never hear those three words from Morse again. Lewis stumbled against the fence, he felt like the ground was falling away beneath his feet. He wanted to cry, to scream, to go to pieces, because this absolutely could NOT be happening, but—</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>He had to keep going, had to catch the criminal, had to follow Morse’s last brilliant lead, because that’s what they did, didn’t they? They swallowed their feelings, buried pride, anger, fear, and affection alike as they chased some illusionary concept of justice. They didn’t fuss.</p>
<hr/><p>Even screaming those horrible words in Dr. Harrison’s face didn’t help. Screaming <em>“Inspector Morse is dead!”. </em>It only made it worse, really.</p>
<hr/><p>Then, standing in the dim light of the mortuary, Lewis was lost for words. Morse’s pale face lay before him. The best man Lewis had ever known. Gone, and Lewis hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. The whole world seemed dark and lonely, all of a sudden. Oh, how Lewis wished he could have said just one more kind word, thanked him, told him how much Lewis would miss him, how much he cared…</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t fuss, Lewis.”</em>
</p><p>Gently, Lewis leaned down and pressed a kiss to Morse’s forehead. “Goodbye, sir,” he whispered. Morse had known. Why else would he have told Lewis not to fuss?</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Wrote this all in a rush after re-watching The Remorseful Day. Definitely not crying. Totally not.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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